by Allan Cole
Then the rod was withdrawn.
“You want eat?” growled a voice.
“Yes,” I said.
“Give to me pail,” was the reply.
I complied, fetching the old food pail and pushing it through the opening. My nostrils curled at the sour smell of spoiled meat and then a bucket of food was passed through. I set it aside.
“You go latrine yet?” rasped the voice.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve done my business.”
“Give to me,” the voice commanded.
I sent through the bucket I’d used. It was traded for an empty one.
Then the grate closed and that was all.
I knew from my experience in the bowels of the dungeons of Konya that I had to eat no matter how disgusting the meal. But the food smelled spoiled and I didn’t want to get sick. I’d learned from my father that in a savage place it’s best to eat your food as hot as possible if you want to avoid illness. So I cast a spell to make a little fire and boiled the contents of the food pail. Soon the cell was full of the strong odor of rotted cabbage and butcher’s castoffs.
I thought of other things and forced myself to consume all I could. I had no implements so I had to use my hands. When I was done there seemed enough left over for another meal and I saved it for that purpose.
I fished through the contents of the greasy stew and found a slim sliver of bone. I tried to guess what animal it came from. It wasn’t fowl, of that I was sure. Nor was it from a pig or a cow. Then I became certain it was lizard.
I tucked the bone into my sleeve for later use. After my next meal I examined the empty metal pail in some detail. It was rusted and had a carrying handle. I knew I couldn’t use any piece of the pail or handle to make a weapon because my keepers would immediately note anything that was broken off. So I flaked away some of the rust - making a little pile of it - and wrapped it in a scrap I’d torn off from my kerchief.
I tucked the packet in my sleeve along with the lizard bone.
I exercised, blanked the light and slept.
When I awakened I exercised again, then settled down on my haunches to consider my circumstances.
I pushed out with my Evocator’s senses, met the wall, pressed through the stone, then was stopped.
The blocking spell felt thick and spongy. I pressed harder but the sponginess absorbed all my attempts. I gave up.
I was on the home ground of an enemy wizard, which is difficult to overcome in any circumstances even if that wizard is an ignorant shaman. I cast my own protective spells, however, shielding myself as best I could from a surprise attack.
That attack came soon after I’d fallen asleep.
I was back in the long ago days when I’d pursued the Archon and was lost in the Western seas. I was in my quarters, swinging in a ship’s hammock, soothed by the steady roll of the ship in gentle waves.
Then Gamelan came rapping into my dream with his blindman’s stick.
“It’s time for another lesson, my friend,” he said.
He threw the stick to me and it became a large winged serpent, hissing and dripping venom from its fangs.
I wanted to leap away. Every nerve in my body urged to me jump. To roll out of the hammock and flee those deadly needle points.
Instead I caught the serpent behind the neck. Turned it toward Gamelan. I squeezed two fingers into the pits on each side of the snake’s neck and green poison squirted out.
The venom splashed against a shimmering surface just in front of Gamelan. He cried out and the sound of his pain made my heart wrench for doing such a thing to my mentor and friend.
Then his image melted, streaming down the shimmering surface like heated paint running down a mirror.
I jolted awake, pulse hammering, every tendon quivering like strummed wire. My mouth was parchment dry, my lips thick and crusted from thirst. I snapped my fingers to make light and went to the corner where the water dripped into the small pool. I scooped up water and drank. The muddy taste of it coated my tongue but my thirst was eased.
I returned to my corner and crouched there for a long time until I had myself under control. Then I went to sleep again.
The warder came. Pails were exchanged. I made another mark, exercised until I was exhausted, then slept.
I dreamed I was in Amalric’s garden. Omyere was playing on her pipes. My brother was pouring me a goblet of wine.
“I love you, sister dear,” he said. “You know I do. And I’ve always admired your courage. But I think you’re beaten. Admit it. Then we’ll have a drink and you can go home.”
I took the goblet from his hand. It held good Antero wine, the very best vintage from our very best orchards. Its perfume made me long for Orissa. I was suddenly so homesick that a sob boiled up and nearly burst forth.
Amalric spread his arms wide. “Come embrace me, Rali,” he said. “I miss you so.”
I smashed the goblet on the garden bench and I was left holding a long crooked shard of crystal. Amalric held out his hand as if pleading with me. I slashed the hand with the shard. He cried out and blood streamed from the wound.
I came up from the bench and he tried to run, but I caught him before he’d taken more than a few steps. I slashed out with the glass dagger.
And he fell to the floor dead before a weeping Omyere.
Tears were streaming down my own face when I returned to wakefulness. I stifled my sobs, wiped away the tears and went to the pool to once again quench that sudden, awful thirst. I quelled all feeling, all emotion and made my mind blank as a lazy schoolgirl’s slate.
Time passed. The warder came and went. More glowing marks were made on the stone. My dreams were untroubled. But I knew my opponent would return.
I made several more marks on the wall before the next attack.
Once again I was in Amalric’s garden. Omyere was weeping over my brother’s body. My hands were covered with his blood and my white tunic was drenched with it.
Suddenly my mother appeared and I was a small girl, dripping blood, wrenched by guilt so strong that I wanted to die myself.
“What have you done, Rali?” she cried. “How could you kill your own brother.”
I still had the crystal in my hand.
I did what I had to.
Quickly.
And when she was dead I killed Omyere too.
The blood flowed over the garden path, and flooded the roses.
I shuddered out of the dream. I had to run to the slop pail to vomit.
It took me hours to recover. And when I had I knew I’d suffered the last assault from afar.
I made ready for what I thought might come next.
I got out the lizard bone and sharpened it against the stone, honing the tip into a needle point. I used a bit of my food to smear over the bone and make it sticky. Then I sprinkled the rust particles over it until the bone was coated. I made a spell, then hid the bone in my sleeve.
Before I slept again I washed as thoroughly as I could. I untangled the knots in my hair and clawed it into some kind of shape.
It’s not good to be left alone with your private ghosts. All the old sins and failures gather to humiliate you. Compulsions you gave in to, petty acts you committed, forgiveness you refused to grant.
You trot them out one by one. Examine them, weep for yourself, lash yourself, then put them carefully away - all unresolved and unsolved - so they’ll be ready when the next time for self torment comes.
I suffered those things. Crouched in my corner until I became hollow-eyed and empty hearted.
The warder came with the food pail one more time. I made yet another mark and dully wondered how many more light smears would be added to that crude calendar of my imprisonment.
I was eating, trying to think of other things when the cell door was suddenly flung open.
Light flooded in and as I shielded my eyes from the glare two large shadows burst through that light and rushed down on me. They bore a net of shimmering gold between them and as they came a
t me they spread the net wide.
I had my plan, such as it was, and I made no resistance. They flung the net over me and I was enveloped in the glittering mesh. It clung like the web of a great spider, trapping my arms and legs so tight I couldn’t have hurled it off if I’d tried. I slipped the lizard bone from my sleeve as they rolled me up in the net as if it were a carpet. I gripped it tight in my fist, but made no other motion - lying absolutely still.
Then the men grabbed either end of the net and unceremoniously lifted me up and carried me away.
No one said a word as I was rushed along dungeon corridors and up dungeon stairs. I saw barred cell doors, hulking guards as slovenly as swamp beasts, naked prisoners hanging by chains from corridor walls and the huffing bellows and spark-spewing furnace of a torturer at work.
I was relieved as they swept past that room but then my chest tightened when I heard someone scream. I couldn’t tell if it were a man or woman - as if that mattered.
We came to what seemed like a landing at the top of the longest flight of stairs. As we climbed I automatically counted the steps. There were one hundred and seventeen. I remember that useless number to this day and have recounted the steps many times in my dreams.
When we reached the top I saw that the stone walls ended at the landing to be replaced by bare, gouged out rock. I twisted my head slightly to look as my captors hauled me toward what appeared to be a wooden-gated shaft.
They hoisted me up as if they were tilting a log on its end and carried me through the gate onto a wooden platform with slatted sides and an open roof. I craned my head back to look up and saw some kind of chain hoist mechanism that led into a yawning darkness that had a pin-point of light at its end.
The heat was nearly overpowering, steaming up all around the edges of the wooden cage. Perspiration rolled down my face, stinging my eyes and cracked lips.
One of the men yanked a cord and I heard a far off bell ring. The platform jolted under me and then with a huge groan and rattle of chain we were slowly drawn upwards. The cage’s journey began clumsily, jerking and jolting and bumping into the walls, but then the rhythm smoothed out, the jerking motion stopped and the pace speeded up.
Stone walls flashed past, moisture and bits of metal flashing in the light of the small glass pots of glowing crystals hanging from one of the cage posts.
The shaft’s surface was broken now and then by tunnel openings, where men waited for transport and blinked in surprise as we rushed by instead of stopping. The openings, I realized after a time, led into mines. And I realized just how deeply my cell was buried beneath what later proved to be the deepest of all the mines.
As we were drawn past the mine tunnels I heard the roar of fire, the clash of metal tools, the crack of hammers breaking rock, the rumble of wooden cart wheels, the curses of overseers and the moans and cries of forced labor.
The ascent took several hours and during that whole time the men never exchanged a word with one another or even glanced at me. After a time I nodded off, dazed by the stifling heat.
I felt a blast of cool air and the platform jolted to a stop.
My eyes blinked open but I immediately had to squint because the light that greeted us seemed quite strong after all those days in the dim cell. Guards swung the gate open and I was hauled out into a cold gray day.
Before I could look about a black bag was drawn over my head. A heavy smothering odor filled my nostrils, choking me. I fought for breath, drew in more of that nauseating gas.
Blackness descended once more.
I dreamed I was in a leafy bower in the arms of a lover. She was strange and familiar to me at the same time, her face and form shifting whenever I looked closely at her. She was sweet and kind and all the things we want a lover to be and when our passion climaxed a delicious joyful languor enveloped me.
In my dream I dozed off, my head pillowed in her lap.
I awoke to sounds of faint pipes playing a peaceful tune. Perfume and incense drifted on the currents of the air and I felt the delicious softness of deep pillows beneath my body.
As awareness returned I realized my fist was still clenched tight over the lizard bone. Relief washed over me. The weapon hadn’t been found.
Someone said my name and I opened my eyes to find two young maids bending over me. They were pretty things with skin like fresh cream and they were dressed in short sheer gowns with golden ties belted about narrow waists.
They had sponges to wipe my brow with perfumed water and a jar of light wine to slake my thirst. Gently they roused me from the comforts of a wonderful bed, with deep brocaded pillows and rosy-hued curtains that could be drawn to shut out the light.
They called me Lady Antero and said I must get ready to be presented to the king. I let them lead me through the chamber, paying no attention to their gentle chatter, which mostly consisted of gossip about their young friends.
I looked about curiously as I padded naked across deep carpets. The walls of the room were hung with fabulous tapestries covered with delightful scenes of field and forest and stream. There were scenes of beautiful young people at play. Chasing a deer, dashing across a meadow or tenderly embracing under the trees.
Although they were naked and some of the love scenes were quite explicit, all was done with much taste so you were charmed rather than enticed or repelled.
The maids led me to a pool-size stone bath filled with steaming perfumed waters. I walked down the steps to enter the water, which came about waist high. They took my elbows and helped me settle down, then clapped their hands and several other maids - each lovelier than the next - appeared from behind curtains.
They were all so young, girls really, and it did lighten my mood to hear their innocent squeals of pleasure as they shed their clothes and climbed into the pool with me.
There I was treated to the most marvelous bath. Gentle fingers probed here and there, sponging and massaging and pouring steamy water over me. They washed my hair, kneading my scalp and treating the damaged parts with conditioning oils.
It was as if I’d never left the dream but had been whisked away to a small paradise where my every need was catered to. A paradise with danger peeping from every corner of the stage where I was the featured player in a charming scene. I went along with it all, laughing at small jokes, tickling a giggle from a girl now and then.
Using the actions to shift the lizard bone about so it wouldn’t be discovered.
The maids didn’t notice my crafty movements. They praised my looks, wept at my battle scars and said, tsk tsk, poor thing, as they gently tended my weary body.
They toweled me off, rubbing my skin until it glowed, then draped me in more thick towels and settled me down before a small table where delicacies had been laid out to satisfy my hunger.
There was a clear broth, toasted bread dripping with butter and honey, rashers of bacon, eggs steamed in wine and slices of iced fruit of every variety. I ate my fill, smiling and answering the maids when they asked me what I needed, but saying nothing else except please and thank you very much, my dears.
Then it was time to dress and they drew aside a curtain, revealing a closet the size of a small room. There was every kind of costume imaginable in that closet, with shoes and sandals and boots to match each one. I looked them over, remarking on the quality of this and the pleasing color of that. I didn’t have to ask or try the costumes on to know that each would fit me perfectly.
The whole atmosphere was casual and natural. We were all sisters together, getting ready for a grand affair. I said nothing or did nothing to spoil that atmosphere, letting events carry me forward and storing up all the will and energy I could.
I chose a simple tunic and matching leggings with a floppy sleeved blouse to wear under the tunic. As I drew it on I hid the lizard bone in the sleeve. Then went about my dressing.
There were doeskin boots for my feet and a belt of silver chain for my waist. The maids opened a velvet-lined chest with all kinds of clever drawers filled wit
h all sorts of jeweled adornments - from tiaras to plain gold bracelets and earrings.
I demurred, saying I really didn’t like jewelry, which was a lie. But I knew better than to wear metal and crystal given to me in the realm of a strange wizard.
The maids were completely unconcerned with my decision and when they shut the chest I wondered if I were wrong and the jewelry was safe.
I touched the lid, pretending to help fasten the catch, felt a warning buzz of sorcery and knew I’d been right to refuse.
Finally I was ready. I looked at myself in the mirror as the maids fussed over me, rearranging the tuck and fold of my clothing and pushing stray curls under the jaunty cap I’d chosen to top off my outfit.